Noisy scenes were witnessed during Question Hour as Ravi Shankar Prasad did not find reply by Sushil Kumar Shinde to his question satisfying.
Creating uproar in the Rajya Sabha, BJP Monday accused the Centre of discriminating against states ruled by non-Congress parties by not allocating coal to power stations in these states.
Noisy scenes were witnessed during Question Hour as senior BJP member Ravi Shankar Prasad did not find reply of Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to his question satisfying.
Members from the Opposition got agitated when Shinde said the job of the ministry was to recommend coal allocation to power plants and it was up to the Coal Ministry to take a call.
Several BJP members left their seats and raised slogans from the aisles against the UPA Government.
Amidst uproar, Chairman Hamid Ansari said, "This (type of behaviour) is completely unacceptable...I am distressed at the behaviour of the members."
Rudra Narayan Pany (BJP), who entered the Well, was persuaded by his party colleagues to return following a warning from the Chair.
Ansari suggested that the BJP members can give notice and seek discussion on the issue.
Coal Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal, who was present, said coal is produced only in the 30 per cent of the states and has to be distributed in the entire country.
The trouble persisted for about 20 minutes half way through the Question Hour.
Earlier, Shinde said power utilities reported a generation loss of 5.3 billion unit due to inadequate coal availability.
He said steps have been taken up to augment supply of coal to thermal stations.
"Ministry of Coal/Coal India are being continually pursued to enhance production of domestic coal," he said adding power utilities are being advised to import coal to bridge the gap. Besides, the coal supply is reviewed at various levels.
Against estimated requirement of 455 million tonnes in the current year, coal availability from domestic sources is indicated as 402 million tonnes. To bridge the gap, power utilities imported 18 MT coal, Shinde said.
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